


Lokiskind Companion

by yumekuimono



Series: Lokiskind [2]
Category: The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Abortion, And Gets One, Angst, Blood, Child Abduction, Crying, Feels, Helheimr | Hel (Realm), Intersex Loki, Jötunn Loki, Loki Needs a Hug, M/M, Magic, Mpreg, Odin's A+ Parenting, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Content, Shapeshifter Loki, Worldbuilding, but still lots of magic, more realistic intersex condition, Álfheimr | Alfheim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-09-12 23:54:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9096154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yumekuimono/pseuds/yumekuimono
Summary: A collection of scenes, in no particular order, from Loki's perspective in the Lokiskind verse. (If you haven't read that yet, what are you doing here? Go read that first.) Anything from backstory, to Loki's version of events that take place in the fic, to additional material that just didn't fit from Tony's POV.





	1. Thor

**Author's Note:**

> Due to the incredible amount of fluff in Lokiskind, these will mostly be angst. I can promise, however, that they'll all end on an upbeat, even possibly happy, note because I am unable to write dark endings.
> 
> Also, if there's part of this 'verse or a scene you want to see feel free to prompt me! (I can't promise I'll do them all, or that they'll be at all timely, but I WILL talk to you about them. Please, mutual excitement is my jam.)
> 
> Given that each chapter will stand alone, I'll be updating as I go, so tags WILL change.

Loki glanced over from where he was tidying the kitchen at the ding of the elevator. “Whatever you want, Thor, do be quiet about it. I _will_ inflict bodily harm should you wake Nari and Vali.”

Thor nodded and came into the kitchen to lean against the breakfast bar, looking somber, which was never a good sign. “Fenrir and Jormungandr are happy to play with me, but Sleipnir does not seem to like me at all and I do not know why.”

Loki put down his rag and turned to lean across from Thor. Folding his arms, he regarded the Thunderer critically. “Do you think it is your business to interact with him whether he wishes it or not?”

“Should I not at least try? He is my nephew.”

“Despite the fact that I am not your brother?”

“You know that I would claim you again, Loki, and happily, if you but allowed me.”

“And you know that I have renounced Asgard and my place there.” When Thor opened his mouth to argue, Loki held up a hand, forestalling him. “That is not, however, at issue at present. You cannot so easily fix my hurt, nor how Sleipnir feels about you.”

“But I must try,” Thor pleaded earnestly. “Asgard has wronged you, and your children, and I recognize now that _I_ have wronged you. I wish to make amends, Loki.”

He continued to stare at Thor, assessing him. Finally Loki sighed. “I have kept this secret for a thousand years and more. I am telling you now because I believe you will learn from it. Do you remember Svadilfari?”

Thor looked thrown by the apparent non-sequitur. “The giant? I defeated him, for he deceived the court and asked an exorbitant price for his work.”

“No, Thor. He asked fair recompense for the task Asgard set to him. To build defenses for all of the city in only three seasons with no aid would have been impossible.”

“Yet he nearly succeeded.” Thor was frowning, but in a way that said he saw the truth in Loki’s words and was having to reconsider his own version of events. Loki found a grim satisfaction in that.

“Only because I convinced the court to allow him his horse, and thus it was I who was sent to delay him when they did not want to pay him his due.”

“That…was not right of them, but what has this to do with Sleipnir and why he does not like me?”

“Svadilfari was my lover, and Sleipnir’s father.”

Thor gaped at him. “Oh.” Then he frowned again. “But, he asked to marry Freyja as part of his payment.”

“No, he asked for the hand of whomever he might freely choose. The court simply assumed he wanted Freyja because that is what everyone looking for a boon from Asgard wants.”

Realization dawned, and Thor was back to sad gaping. “Would you have accepted?”

Loki shrugged. “Possibly. His was the first offer of marriage I had ever received, and I believe by that point you had already had several.”

Thor looked devastated. “Were you… Did you plan to have Sleipnir?”

“No. I became pregnant the night I distracted Svadilfari from building the wall. Before that I had not known it was a possibility.” He glanced out the window. “You are raining.” Dark clouds swirled over the Tower and fat drops smacked against the window. “Do try to remember what I said about waking the twins.”

“I… I am _sorry_ , Loki.”

He sighed, unfolding his arms to brace them on the counter behind him. “If you apologized to me for every hurt you have caused we would be here for a very long time, and I would not believe you could mean all of them.”

Thor nodded unhappily. “Tell me what I can do then, for Sleipnir, please.”

“You cannot do anything, nor should you continue to try as you have been. Perhaps Sleipnir will see that you have changed and perhaps he will not. Either way you will have to live with how he feels and allow it. You are a reminder, Thor, of an unhappy and unfair childhood that was, perhaps, worse than my own because he was judged not for himself but for being my child. It will take time for Sleipnir to believe that the same will not happen here.”

“Do you regret any part of how you raised your children?” Thor asked softly.

Loki turned to look at the entrance to the hallway where Nari and Vali were sleeping, unable to face Thor’s compassion now that he finally had it. “Many things. Never that I carried or kept them. Neither would I change anything if I could, if it meant not arriving at this moment.”


	2. abortion

_Oh_ , was his first thought.

And then, _No. No, he’d thought he’d gotten it right this time._

Dread settled into his stomach, stark and heavy against the tiny pulsing presence of another life beginning to grow. He couldn’t let Odin find out about it, couldn’t keep this one, like he couldn’t keep the last one.

Quickly, he gathered the herbs he would need, avoiding anyone who might see him, and then he left the realm. His refuge was just underneath Asgard in the branches of Yggdrasil, tucked close to the trunk, nearly impossible to find even if anyone had been looking for it. It was saturated with _eidr_ , carved out of it and bolstered with his own magic such that it was stable enough not to collapse in on itself as other created dimensions tended to do when they got to be too large. Currently it had four rooms along a bare hallway, air, and gravity. Three of those rooms were behind closed doors that he did not open, unable to face the reminders of the lives his children had once led but equally unable to be rid of them. The fourth was his own private study, filled with his most important magical books and items, where he could go when he wanted to work undisturbed. It also meant that he could leave at any time and not miss anything, though he hadn’t so far managed to leave for good.

Depositing the herbs on his desk in the study, he went out into the hall. He felt numb, unable to think past the oppressive weight that hovered around him but didn’t quite touch. If he thought about it, he’d be crushed. Instead he exerted his will outward, forcing the boundaries of his created world to shift and expand, turning the pure _eidr_ of Yggdrasil into _seidr_ according to his design. Walking into the brand new room, he closed a door behind himself that had not existed before he reached for it, and then he flung his arms out and made it into a bedroom fit for his comfort. It did not look like his chambers on Asgard, nor the rooms he’d rented on Alfheim, nor any of the other places he’d stayed in the Nine Realms, but was a combination of all of them. At another time he would have enjoyed it, put care into crafting each aspect and item, but as it was he felt only a vague satisfaction. There was a second door leading from the room, and this he opened to create a bathroom beyond. It took some work to add water to his world and make it run so that his appliances would function properly, but he could not bring himself to enjoy the challenge. Exhausted and with his magic depleted after such a large working, Loki went to bed, trying to ignore the brightness lodged in his abdomen.

When he woke, he went to his study and mechanically mixed the potion, drinking it down without thinking about it. He gasped, dropping the bowl on his desk as he felt his magic forcibly removed from the life inside of him, the tiny spark winking out. Then he hurried into the bathroom as his body shifted, ending up doubled over on his knees in the empty bathtub as the pain hit, blanking out everything else.

He didn’t realize the sound filling the room was his own sobbing until he choked on it. His arms were wrapped around his middle and he was rocking back and forth, shaking. He could barely see, and what he did was only smeared red, blurred further by the same tears that blinded him. Waves of contractions swept through him, spilling out the dead contents of his womb. He heaved in breaths, unable to stop the high keen that escaped with each exhale. And then:

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t sure if he was apologizing to the potential-child he’d killed, or to his previous children that he’d been too weak and too foolish to keep, or to himself for putting kin ties of an indeterminate distance above his own flesh and blood.

There was _so much_ blood. It painted a dark swath across the floor of the tub towards the drain. It covered his bare thighs and his hands, stained his shirt. It mingled with the tears on his face, although he didn’t remember how it had gotten there. Eventually, after hours, it stopped. He turned on the water, watched it run dark, and then pink, and then clear. He hurt still. He didn’t feel clean. His body shifted back, and once even that was gone there was no longer any visible trace of what he’d done. It was as if nothing had ever happened. He felt hollow, the edges of it cutting into the rest of him.

Climbing out of the tub, he dried himself perfunctorily. Then he crawled back into bed, curling around the aching absence inside of him, so much larger now that it was gone.

It was a week before he could stand the thought of leaving his nest of furs and facing another person. He only knew because he needed to eat, the rest of the time spent crying, or asleep, or attempting it. He wasn’t ready to go back to Asgard, didn’t have the energy to travel, and so he went to the only other place he could think of: he went to visit his daughter.

Hela welcomed him as she always did, and then she said, “Father, something strange has come into my realm.”

She summoned an orb, the remnants of his green magic trapped within it revolving around the faintest wisp of a soul, so small as to be invisible had the glass not magnified it. Loki flinched.

“What is it?” Hela asked, concerned.

“That…” He had to stop to swallow, wet his lips. “…would have been my child.”

“Oh. _Oh_.” Hela hurriedly waved the orb away, and then she hugged him. “Oh, Father. I am sorry. I should not have shown you. I would not even have noticed it had I not been watching for anything of yours.”

From where his face was buried in his daughter’s blonde hair, Loki managed a small smile. “I should accuse you of playing favorites, except that I know that your tutors raised you to be wiser than that.”

She gave a brief laugh. “Of course I play favorites. I am not Mistress Death, merely her humble servant, and subject to the same whims as all others.” Then she pulled back but allowed him to keep hold of her hands, squeezing his gently as she asked, “Do you want to come with me when I release it?”

“I… Yes.”

She nodded and led him outside, holding tightly to his hand as they left the castle behind and approached the places where the fabric of the realm grew thin. Icy winds swirled around them, blowing Hela’s skirts and hair and the tails of his coat in front of them, tugging them forward. They teased around him, though he knew that his daughter, as mistress of this realm, was unaffected. _Someday_ , they whispered. _Someday._ He knew better than to follow them.

Hela produced the orb again and closed it into her fist, her blue-black magic sparking. When she opened her hand the glass was gone. The shade drifted out of her palm, a faint green butterfly, so fragile as to be barely there. They watched as the winds bore it away until it was no longer visible, lost to the vast bare landscape of Helheim and the void beyond.

“Father?”

Loki realized he was crying, the tears sliding down his cheeks despite the freezing temperatures that he could barely feel. He shook his head, blinking them away. “It is better like this. Father… Odin would have taken it from me had I kept it.” He didn’t say that he would have wanted to keep it, wanted to raise it, would have loved and cherished it as he did all of his children, if he’d allowed himself. If he’d thought he could have kept it from Odin. If he’d let it grow past its two weeks of life.

“You should leave Asgard,” his daughter said, not unkindly. She was in her third century now and old enough to give him advice.

“You know why I cannot. Thank you, Hela.” He tightened his hand around hers briefly and allowed her to take him back to the castle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tweaked the medical abortion process since Loki doesn't normally have a vagina, so he's basically having his entire period right then (which sucks). This was in no way meant to discourage anyone from having an abortion if they really don't want to have a child.


	3. Samhain

Loki slipped through the trees into the deeper parts of the forest, where the orderly meadows and copses of the city gave way to wilder things. _Eidr_ surged and swirled over the landscape, sweeping through him and making his blood sing. He’d quickly abandoned his primary form for the long loping strides of a wolf, his paws crunching on the first of the fallen leaves. He ran simply to run, to feel the air in his lungs, the power, and then he was borne aloft by it, his paws leaving the ground to become wings. He twisted in and out of branches, fast and faster in the dark and then he tumbled down, into a panther this time, exhilarating in it.

The city he’d chosen to live in while on Alfheim was a settlement of the light fae, but now he came to where its lands became those of the dark elves. He stopped at the edge of a clearing where a bonfire had been lit, watching the troupe there as they feasted. Their skin, dark in shades of purple, blue, and black flickered with the firelight. It was not long before one of them, a woman whose hair was only a shade darker than the scarlet skirt she wore slashed to both hips, raised her arms and attention tuned to her.

“We have a watcher,” she announced. Turning to the forest where Loki stood, she raised her voice. “Come out, Watcher, and entertain us.”

He stepped from the trees as a magnificent stag, his coat a rippled blue roan and a rack spreading heavy from his head. As he walked he slipped down into his wolf, and then in a sudden bounding leap he burst apart into a flock of iridescent ravens. A murmur ran through the crowd as he wheeled out to the edge of the clearing, a display of skill: a part of himself was divided into each bird, and it became harder to control and then to simply to hold on to all of them the farther apart they became. Not many could shift into multiple forms at all, relying on illusions to create the effect instead, but Loki’s unkindness displayed the subtly individual features and flight patterns that marked it as the true feat. He coalesced back into his primary form, long black feathers sweeping up from the ground to shorten into his hair, and he grinned.

Another murmur went up when they saw his pale skin and flat Aesir features. The dark elves were known to hunt their lighter brethren for sport, although such things were not held to by those who ventured this close to the borders on the festival days. There was nothing to say they would not hunt an outsider, though, should what they had to offer not be entertainment enough. Loki’s little display was sufficient, apparently, for he was handed a goblet of sharp summer wine and folded into the gathering. They feasted on boar crusted in herbs with squashes and fresh bread and the first of the wizened wild apples. There were honeyed nut pastries, and wine enough, but Loki was drunk on the energy pulsing through the land, through the people, through him. When a skirling, staggering melody started up on pipes, joined by insistent throbbing drums that took up residence over his heartbeat, Loki found himself swept along into the dancing.

It was wild, careless. It was something he would never do in the court of Asgard. As it went on, it was something that would never happen in the court of Asgard. In the shadows thrown out by the bonfire he couldn’t tell where one body ended and another began. It was breathless, it was electric, it was erotic. He whirled and swayed, moving sinuously to the current that wound its way through the core of every living thing around him.

A man emerged out of the mass of shifting bodies, becoming distinct in Loki’s perception as he slid into his space, the two of them turning around each other bare chest to bare chest. The man’s canines lengthened as he grinned, tufts of fur at the tips of his long ears. “Three of your ravens were crows, Watcher.”

Loki grinned back, sly. “Were they?”

The elf’s skin rippled, bluish black fur growing to cover it and a ruff of mane rising down the top of his spine before it all shortened into nothing but shaggy shoulder-length black hair: another display of skill, this one just for him. Loki let his eyes roam over the other man’s form, drifting back up to meet his golden ones with approval, and lust. Their bodies skimmed closely around each other as they danced, almost but never quite touching in motion sensuous and seductive.

“I think such a powerful outsider as you, coming all the way out here alone, is looking to experience all there is to be had on a night like this.” There was a rumbling growl underpinning his words.

“Is that an offer?”

They had come to the edge of the crowd, between the firelight and the trees. When the elf moved suddenly to close the gap between them and bite at his neck, Loki twisted away and dropped into his wolf, taking off into the trees. There were by this time others coupling in the shadows or the light, but for all his willingness Loki was still a product of Asgard, where such things happened behind closed doors. The clearing had disappeared behind them when his lover caught him, a wolf even larger than his own. They wrestled over the ground and Loki changed back just as he rolled over, forcing the other man to shift as well, and so he never quite made the submissive show of his belly.

“Clever,” the elf growled.

“Oh, can you not keep up enough to take me?” He hadn’t bothered with his breeches when he’d returned to his primary form, and now he wrapped a leg over his lover’s hip, writhing up against him. They were both hard, had been hard. The elf let Loki roll them over and then he surged up, teeth finally making contact with his skin hard enough to bruise and claim. Loki gasped, baring his neck further as he arched downward, and his lover slipped out from under him to mount him from behind.

He planted a hand between Loki’s shoulders, rutting hard between his ass cheeks. Loki’s knees slid desperately wider. His face was pushed into soft moss and rich dirt, the black earth that had just given forth life in abundance and would continue to provide. The _eidr_ swirled through the land, from the land, things growing and living filling him up, and he wanted— He’d _lost_ and he _wanted_ —

“Can someone like you ever stay long enough to be taken?”

His body changed, labia and vulva unfurling between his legs and he shoved himself back, startling a yelp out of the man behind him, followed by an aroused growl as he leaned forward to bite at Loki’s shoulder. He thrust into Loki’s cunt, slick and wet, and Loki moaned with it, pushed back. He wanted to be full, wanted seed, wanted growth— He hadn’t thought enough to control the change and he shook into a double orgasm, his cock spending itself untouched on the heels of the pleasure sweeping through his cunt. He vaguely registered his lover’s own orgasm with a pleased satisfaction.

The currents of _eidr_ settled finally in the hours before the dawn, and the world followed it into sleep, the two of them with it. Loki woke to a strong blue sky beyond the dark pines overhead, sated and pleasantly sore. He’d been well-fucked and felt it, although in a somewhat strange manner as he no longer had the orifice he’d been fucked in. He wondered idly if he could find a way to do that without the help of wild magic. Standing and stretching, he brushed dirt and moss off of his skin and out of his hair, taking stock of the bruises left on his hips and over his neck and shoulders. He didn’t bother looking back at the elf still sleeping until he’d reached the top of the small ridge at whose base they’d come to a stop. Then Loki’s green wolf-eyes met golden ones for a last time before he turned and disappeared back through the forest towards the city.

He sat up abruptly in bed one morning two weeks later, hand going to his abdomen. A faint fluttering hum had started there: a sensation he’d last felt nearly twenty years ago and yet would never be able to forget. He felt himself smile. That small glow buoyed him through his morning routine and down the stairs, where Shandra was frying masa cakes. She was a cheerful, plump lady whose once-green hair had gone brown and brittle with age, and from whom Loki rented the upper floors of a lovely fir house as she could no longer manage the stairs as easily as she once had. She reminded him of Frigga in a way, except that Shandra’s version of maternalistic care mostly involved cooking and cleaning, and he was sure that the Queen of Asgard had never done either of those in her life.

“You are happy this morning,” she remarked, looking over her shoulder from the stove. “You do not spend enough mornings looking happy like this.”

“I am pregnant,” he announced, sitting at the table and reaching for one of the fruits in the bowl in the center.

“Oh, that’s lovely dear,” she exclaimed, setting the finished plate of masa cakes between them. Loki took one, drizzling red-gold honey over it. “When my grandparents lived up north it wouldn’t be so, but down here it’s a good time to carry a child. Have you been pregnant before?” Shandra herself had three children, all grown and living elsewhere now.

“Yes.” He didn’t offer any details, and Shandra clucked in sympathy, knowing not to pry. “I suppose I shall have to retrieve the supplies I used previously.”

She tutted at him. “You think you are the only one to get with child on a festival night? Wait until you start showing and there will be an abundance of people looking to offer all the new mothers whatever it is they might need. Especially other mothers whose children were born of Samhain who are now looking to pass on the kindness they received, and also to get rid of things they no longer need, eh?”

“And after my child is born? I went to the dark lands that night.”

“You say you are a smart one,” she chided gently. “You are not the first to couple with the other kin. I should think you blind as well but that the _eidr_ and our own whim will change the colors of our skin. Such things do not matter, and your child would be allowed in the dark lands should they wish.”

“Apologies. My… Previously, it was not so. I am glad that it is different in Alfheim.”

Fenrir was born in the spring, and Loki was happier than he could remember being in a very long time.

He stayed for the neighborhood celebration the next Samhain, sitting at the edge of the fire with his son. Fenrir babbled excitedly, shifting back and forth between a little dark-skinned baby and the wolf pup he’d shown an affinity for very early, though he was unable to sustain it for any length of time. Loki watched, and held him, entranced by the feeling of the _eidr_ as its currents moved once again across the landscape and eddied through the two of them, tying them closer together than even skin.

The next year, Shandra tutted at him knowingly and took Fenrir and said, “Go. You are young yet and should _enjoy_ the festival rather than wasting yourself at home. I still know how to handle a baby.”

Fenrir was walking by that point, and eating solid foods, when he wasn’t playing with them. He had a growing list of words and could hold his wolf form for minutes at a time, though thankfully the diaper remained on when he did so. And Loki had watched this happen before, his child growing and learning, but this time he found himself half-wishing to slow time, to preserve each moment. He knew better than to take them for granted now. Yet he also wanted more, still, wanted to have it all again, and so he did go out, this time to the center of the city. The lover he chose for himself that night was tall, lithe and sinewy, with long silver hair to match the serpent’s scales he kept to accentuate the lines of his bones. His body was a force where it met Loki’s, though he left no visible marks on his skin. Loki waited anxiously through the weeks afterward until he was sure, and then he went so far as to kiss Shandra on the cheek when he came down to breakfast in the morning. He was going to have a second child on Alfheim.


	4. Laufey

Loki took a breath, held it a second, and then let it out. His daughter had told him much about events in her castle since his fall from the Rainbow Bridge, but he still wasn’t sure how he would be received. He pushed through the door, standing uneasily on the other side.

“Laufey.”

It was incongruous to see the former Jotun king without bracers, spaulders, or greaves, wearing only his loincloth to lounge in an armchair scaled to fit his size. Even stranger was that he was inside a room at all, however high the ceiling, and not out in the ice and snow. No fire was lit in the hearth, but still it wasn’t as cold as it was outside.

“Loki. You come to me yet again. How is it this time?”

He swallowed, willing his silver tongue not to fail him. “Hela suggested I talk to you. I do not know to what purpose. I cannot ask for your forgiveness…”

“Death will do much to change one’s perspective, as will learning of a son long thought lost and a granddaughter who is Queen of this realm. I cannot say that I am happy with my fate, but it cannot be changed, and I will admit that if the situation had been reversed and you had used such a ploy to strike a blow at Asgard, I would be proud of your wit and your cunning. Perhaps, if you had been raised as you should have been, Jotunheim would not still be a dying world suffering from Odin’s war two thousand years ended.”

Loki suppressed a shudder. Instead, thanks to him, Jotunheim had nearly become a dead realm,  suffering from a war too quickly ended. “Will you hear me?”

Laufey gestured to a chair across from his own, of a size more suited to Loki’s stature, and he sat.

“Again, I cannot ask forgiveness, I only…wish that you know this.” His gaze dropped to his clasped hands. “The day that I…let you into Asgard was the last day I claimed to be a son of Odin. I had only recently learned that I was not the Aesir I believed myself to be, and I… Two thousand years I spent living in Thor’s shadow, unable to understand why I was never afforded the same affection my adoptive brother seemed to win so easily. I thought of all sorts of reasons.” He let out a silent laugh, humorless. “I never guessed the truth. Yet Odin told us we were both worthy of the throne, as if it was something I could ever win over Thor, if only I tried hard enough. I suspect now that he meant me to depose you. That day was my last and greatest try to prove myself a good Asgardian. I failed, as always, to gain the one thing that I have ever truly wanted. In the end I would have let myself die, had my fall not brought me to a different fate.”

He glanced up and was surprised to see sadness in Laufey’s face. “Father…”

Laufey’s deep voice had an edge of gravel to it as he said, “No, Loki. I am your mother. Byleistr and Helblindi, your half-siblings, they are children of my seed, but you are the child of my body. You are my eldest, and the only one I carried. I could not bear to carry another, after I lost you.”

Loki felt as if the ground had disappeared beneath him, as if a hole had opened somewhere near his heart. He blinked against the burning in his eyes. “I have… I have children of my body. Hela is my seed, but there are others, beyond my reach… Three of them. The Allfather took them from me when they were young.”

A high keen escaped from the back of Laufey’s throat, and Loki realized that it was crying. “Odin has wronged you greatly. And I wronged you greatly, the day I let you go.”

He struggled not to be consumed by the hole within his chest. “Odin claimed I was abandoned because I was small.”

Laufey’s eyes closed, and he turned his face away. “I did abandon you, but not in the temple. You were meant to be safe there while the battle was fought. I abandoned you when I discovered you missing and left you to your fate. I was resigned to a fragile peace at a high cost. I should have known it was too high.” He regained some of his composure and looked back at Loki. “You are small because you are powerful. It is a gift.”

Loki found himself suddenly crying, unable to stop. After a moment Laufey cautiously came forward to kneel before his chair.

“May I?”

Loki stood to wrap his arms around his mother’s neck, Laufey cradling his back gently. He felt the deep cold sweep over him, pushing back Odin’s spell to turn his skin blue and his eyes red, and he welcomed it. His tears stopped, replaced by the same wailing keen Laufey had made, helpless punctuation to his gasping breaths. His clothing became stiflingly warm, and he banished most of it from his person. Behind the cold came the touch of death, and it burned away the restriction for good. He remembered then that this sudden belonging he’d found, this way in which he could fit without trying, was only temporary. This possibility, however much he wanted it, would soon be lost to him because his mother was dead, and by his hand. Eventually he must pass into the void, and the realm he’d ruled would not welcome his killer. Loki cried harder.

When, after what seemed an eternity, he quieted, Laufey carefully cupped his face and told him, “You are beautiful, my son.” His thumb brushed over the markings beneath Loki’s cheekbone, before dropping to examine the ones on his forearm. Loki felt something analogous to a shiver go through him. Laufey’s hand returned to his face to trace the design on his forehead. “Each of us has a unique skin pattern, but this is the Crown of Ymir. It also marks you as a powerful mage, and on Jotunheim it would afford you great respect.”

“Mother…” Loki had to stop, to swallow. “Though I am unworthy, I have renounced Asgard and the name I wore there… Would you allow me the honor of yours?”

“I also have a request, little one. Return the Casket of Ancient Winters to Jotunheim. Should you restore the power of growth to our realm you will have more than redeemed yourself in my eyes. Regardless, you may claim yourself as Laufeyson. Make the name a proud one.”

The Casket had been lost to the void when Loki fell, but already he was thinking of ways he might retrieve it. He could make amends, start to heal his damage. “I promise you I shall.”


	5. Hela

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well it's been a while hasn't it. I promise this work is NOT abandoned. I am, however, writing chapters of this in between IRL stuff and writing my other main fics, the last of which turned out to be 20k words so... ^^; yeah, updates on this will be super slow, for which I apologize. but so long as it doesn't say completed, there WILL be another chapter

Loki crooned an elvish lullaby as he put together a bottle, carrying his daughter in one arm. Sigyn wanted nothing to do with her, but Loki was a prince and so when he told the healers that he was keeping his daughter, they convinced her to save her breastmilk. She’d grudgingly sent her maid to deliver it for the past three days after she’d stormed back to her own chambers claiming she didn’t know how she’d ever been foolish enough to present a suit to Frigga. She was more than likely already speaking to his parents about dissolving their union. Loki wasn’t particularly concerned about the collapse of his marriage. He’d had little choice in the matter, and resented the attempt to tie him to Asgard while he was still grieving for his sons. He hadn’t known Sigyn well anyway, and he would not tolerate his wife calling their daughter a monster. He was perfectly capable of taking care of her on his own.

Settling himself in a comfortable armchair, he cradled his daughter against his bare chest and held the bottle for her to nurse from, continuing to hum. Loki gazed down at her in adoration. Her appearance was unusual certainly, but she was beautiful nonetheless. She was divided exactly in half, the creamy skin on her right in stark contrast to the rippled black and blue on her left. That side almost seemed to be entirely black now, save for upon closer inspection, but as she grew the patterns in her markings would be revealed. Loki hoped that her right eye would darken to green from its present gray as she got older as well. She would not have an easy time in Asgard, but Loki loved her with everything he had given to his other children.

“What should your name be, hmm?” he murmured as he shifted her up to his shoulder to burp. Sigyn had chosen a name of course, but it didn’t seem right to keep it when she had so easily rejected both of them. Loki rocked his daughter to sleep thinking about it.

When a servant  announced that the King and Queen had come to see him, Loki pulled on a tunic and allowed them entry.

“Loki,” Frigga said gently, “Sigyn came to us today to request that your marriage be annulled.”

“I have no objection.”

“She made some claims about your child.” The Allfather’s voice was dark.

Loki’s expression sharpened, broken edges pointing outward. “There is nothing wrong with my child.”

“May we see her?” Frigga asked, but Odin was already moving forward. Loki hurried to stand in front of the cradle, trying to block their view even though he knew it was useless. He wouldn’t be able to hide his daughter’s appearance, and sooner or later it must come out.

“You cannot take her from me,” he insisted.

Odin’s expression became thunderous when he saw the infant lying in the cradle. “Sigyn was right,” he growled. “This cannot be tolerated.” Pushing past Loki, he snatched up the child. Frigga gave a little gasp when he turned, her hand flying to cover her mouth.

Loki threw himself at his father, tearing at his arms. “No! Give her back!”

Odin shoved him away, into Frigga’s hands as she tried to restrain him. “Loki, please…” she pleaded.

He fought her blindly, his gaze fixed on his daughter. “Give her back to me! Give her back! You can’t— Father, _please_ —”

“Enough,” Odin growled. “I will not have this halfling _thing_ in the halls of my court!” He stalked away, teleporting out of the room.

“ _No!_ ” Loki shouted, twisting out of his mother’s grasp. Grabbing  on to the end of the spell, he followed after Odin.

When he arrived on the Rainbow Bridge some distance from the Observatory, he ran. Inside, he could see Odin speaking to Heimdall. His heart thudded in his throat. The Bifrost began to open, showing a glimpse of night and snow. A scream tore from him. “ _No! NO!_ ” Odin did not seem to hear as he cast his granddaughter into space.

Loki became stone. His body fell to the ground, staring uncomprehendingly at the closing Bifrost.

Odin did not look at him as he walked past, returning to the city down the Rainbow Bridge. Time passed and Loki did not move. He did not look away from the last glimpse of his daughter. Eventually Heimdall approached, laying a hand on his shoulder.

“Go back to your rooms, young prince,” the Watcher suggested, not unkindly.

Loki refused food and he did not speak. He barely moved, staring sightlessly at his wall where the image of his daughter being thrown into the Bifrost was imprinted on his mind. His daughter, his daughter was gone. His beautiful baby. All of his children. He’d lost all of them. He was empty. He did not think, he did not want. He felt nothing save for the aching void, his body numb and so, so cold underneath his furs. Time had no meaning for him.

“Loki…” A cool hand smoothed over his forehead. Frigga wept at his bedside. “I promise you, I promise you all is not lost. Go and search out your daughter.”

Loki’s eyes focused on his mother.

“She lives yet. Search her out.”

Loki left his bed clinging to a desperate hope to keep himself upright. He bared his teeth at Heimdall, wild-eyed and wild-haired, and the Watcher opened the Bifrost for him. He landed on Nifleheim, staggering through the thigh-deep snow as the wind howled around him. A figure was seated on an outcrop of rock ahead of him. Her cloak was a deep black and underneath its hood her face was gaunt, a grey pallor to her brown skin. She held a tiny bundle that was far too still. Loki fell to his knees.

Mistress Death raised her head to look at him, her flesh melting away to reveal bare bone.

“Please,” Loki whispered, the broken sound lost in the wind.

With a tilt of her head, Lady Death indicated for him to follow her, skin clothing her features once more. Loki got up and started walking, not caring where she might lead him. He did not stop even when the winds began to blow in only one direction and he caught glimpses in the corner of his eye of shades being borne along upon it, enticing him dangerously forward, and he knew they had left Nifleheim behind.

Mistress Death led him to a castle hunched beneath the snowy sky and into the great hall. The tall, craggy being sat on the throne there knelt when he saw them. He was made out of stone, one of the Sons of Muspelheim, despite the fact that he was the same bleak grey as the castle around them and the only fire he had was a dull red glow deep in the cracks of his skin. Two jagged horns rose from the top of his head. When Mistress Death placed the baby in his hands, he bowed further and thanked her. Then the Lady faded from existence. As soon as she was gone, the infant stirred and began to fuss. The giant rocked her and finally looked at Loki.

“You are her father?” His voice was the grating of boulders. “Come with me.”

He led Loki into a sitting room, where a fire burned brightly in the hearth. There he gently handed him back his daughter. She blinked at him and babbled, waving her hands happily. Loki burst into tears, sinking down on the edge of a couch. He held his daughter against his chest and cried, rocking them both back and forth.

When he had calmed enough to sit back and begin to worry about quieting the baby too, the stone giant waved a servant forward. They placed a low table to Loki’s side and set out his daughter’s nursing things. “These are yours, yes?” the giant confirmed. “She will be hungry.”

“My thanks,” Loki replied hoarsely. He made up a bottle automatically, heating it with his magic, and his daughter latched on greedily.

“Do you understand what has happened?” the giant asked.

Loki tore himself away from watching her suckle. “Not entirely.”

“I am Hel. This, my realm, is where souls come on their journey to Mistress Death. It is my duty to guide them. Your daughter has been chosen to replace me, and when she has grown her horns my soul too will depart and Hela will become the new Queen of the Dead.”

Loki nodded, pressing his lips together as he looked back down at his daughter. She would live. She would be allowed to grow and mature and be _happy_ as she deserved, but she would be bound always to this realm. His voice trembled. “May I visit her?”

“It is not wise for the living who do not serve Mistress Death to stay very long in this realm, nor visit too frequently. But as you were guided by My Lady herself, you will be welcome to visit here in Elvidner.”

Tears dropped onto his daughter’s swaddling and her skin, and she whined in protest. Loki set down the bottle and wiped them gently away. “I owe you more than I can possibly repay.”

“You have no need to. I will leave you alone now. The servants can bring you food or show you to a room to rest.”

When they were alone, Loki lifted his daughter so he could kiss her face. “Hela,” he whispered. “Your name is Hela, and you will be magnificent and beautiful. My daughter.”

He remained in Helheim, watching Hel choose souls from out of the neverending flow to serve as nursemaids and playmates and tutors. Servants were sent into the Nine Realms to procure all of the items that a baby would require. Loki spent nearly all of his time with Hela, caring for her and playing with her, trying to fit everything in before he would have to leave. When three months had passed, Hel approached him.

“You have been here long. It is time you returned to the living. You should be safe here again when four times this span of days has passed.”

Loki nodded, hugging Hela one last time. “Care for her well.” To his daughter, he said, “I love you. I swear that I will return.”


	6. intersexuality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted a more realistic representation of intersex conditions because the way fandom usually does it (and the way I have done it in Lokiskind for the most part) is _not at all_ accurate, so this is my attempt to retrofit that. there's still quite a lot of reliance upon magic to do impossible mpreg things, though, since there has never been a case of an actual intersex human with ovotesticular disorder of sex development in which both types of gonads are functional. but generally, Loki could be considered to have 46,XX/46,XY chimerism.
> 
> this takes place sometime during Chapter 3 of Lokiskind, before the wedding proposal

“Mm, babe, I wanna get my mouth on your cock.”

Loki made a noise in the back of his throat and shifted his hips away, breaking off their heated make-out session.

Tony blinked his eyes open. “Babe?” He frowned when he saw Loki’s expression. “What’s wrong?”

“I— It is not…normal.” Loki pushed himself up from where he was lying on his side on the bed to shift back against the pillows. Curling in as much as was possible, he cradled his pregnant belly, shoulders tense. He didn’t look at Tony. “I have never…had a partner so late in the term before.”

Tony sat up as well. “There’s nothing wrong with having sex while pregnant.” Loki was entering his third trimester, and they’d had a fairly decent amount of sex up to this point, even considering that raising children was exhausting.

Loki shook his head, addressing his knees. “It is… There are certain physical traits required to give birth that I do not normally have. I cannot control the changes to my body that allow me to do so.”

Tony had gotten quite a lot of sustained practice in clear and open communication over the last few months. He wasn’t going to say he was an expert , but he was definitely a lot more comfortable with it. “Okay, so, walk me through this. What does it mean?”

Loki took a moment to gather his thoughts. “When I was carrying Sleipnir, Frigga eventually discovered my pregnancy. She…helped me to keep it hidden and to know what I should expect. It was she who was able to arrange for a physician to see to me, and they told me that genetically, the cells of my body are of different sexes. I have normally both types of gonads and a very small womb, and if I did not have the ability to shapeshift, I would only be able to reproduce as a man. Everything else is supported by my magic, from conception to the formation of a vaginal canal and breasts for nursing.”

Loki paused, speaking more slowly now as he tested the truthfulness of his words. “My shapeshifting and magic is an intrinsic part of me, and therefore this is a normal function of my body. It is a process much like puberty that I cannot consciously influence. Although I consider myself to be a man, I have accepted this change because I very much want to carry and birth my own children. I have never had to consider the reactions of another person.”

“And you’re worried I’ll be put off by what your body is doing?” Tony surmised.

Loki nodded unhappily.

“Well…I can’t say I haven’t been wondering how you were going to pull off giving birth, given all of my previous direct experience with your genitalia.” Loki huffed in what was almost nearly a laugh, and Tony reached out to fix a mussed strand of his hair. “So I am very curious. And in terms of sexuality, I’ve never particularly cared about the body of my partner, so long as we both have fun. But it’s your choice, Loki, your right to determine how much, if anything, I know about your body. If you don’t wanna have sex or get naked with me until after the twins are born, then that’s fine.”

Loki cut a look at him. “I do. Want you.”

“Then we’ll wait until you’re comfortable, okay?”

Loki nodded, blinking hard.

“Hey, come here,” Tony murmured, shifting alongside him and putting an arm around his back. Loki leaned heavily into his side, settling his head on Tony’s shoulder. Tony rested his palm over the curve of his belly.

After a while of sitting quietly, Tony said, “Can I ask you something? If you don’t want to answer, you can say so.”

“Mm.”                                     

“You mentioned once that you can change your physical sex through shapeshifting?”

“Yes.”

“Why can’t you do that now? Why couldn’t you, say, remain as you normally are and then change on your due date?”

Loki sighed. “I do not have enough available power. The large part of my magic is gradually taken up by the autonomic process of sustaining the pregnancy and development of my child since I am otherwise unable to do so physically. By the time my external sex characteristics change, what I have left is insufficient for something so densely complex as shapeshifting, and certainly not enough to work against my own body’s intent. Should circumstances force my magic into being otherwise expended, I would most likely miscarry.”

“Oh. Shit.” Loki relied a lot on his magic. Being a mage was part of who he was, and he had to choose between that and having a baby. Tony leaned back to see Loki’s face, struck by realization. “You’re…really vulnerable when you’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

Loki’s expression pinched slightly around the edges. “Yes.”

“I didn’t—realize how much of a risk this is. I mean you—basically stranded yourself here with no real guarantee that it would work out.” Tony struggled to express what he was trying to say. “But you did, because I asked you to. You took that chance for me, really, and I just— I’m glad you did, is all. I’m really grateful that, that you trusted me enough to make all of this…happen.”

Loki smiled at him before he could continue to ramble awkwardly on and lose the point. “You are welcome,” he said gently. He leaned in to kiss Tony’s cheek. “I am lucky to have you.”

“Yeah, I’m… I’m lucky to have you, too.” He turned to bury his nose in Loki’s hair when he rested his head in the crook of Tony’s shoulder again, snuggling closer. “Thank you.”

**Author's Note:**

> flail with me on [Tumblr](http://yumekuimono.tumblr.com)


End file.
